DNA tests results will take weeks to know if fragment is from Michaela Garecht, who was kidnapped in '88

Updated 10:29 pm, Thursday, October 11, 2012

Sharon Murch - whose daughter, Michaela Garecht, was taken at the age of 9 - leaves a news conference where she said she was hopeful she might learn Michaela's fate.

Sharon Murch - whose daughter, Michaela Garecht, was taken at the age of 9 - leaves a news conference where she said she was hopeful she might learn Michaela's fate.

Photo: Liz Hafalia, The Chronicle

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Hayward police have accumulated file cabinets full of information about the abduction 24 years ago.

Hayward police have accumulated file cabinets full of information about the abduction 24 years ago.

Photo: Liz Hafalia, The Chronicle

Image 3 of 8

Police Sgt. Eric Krimm shows a framed flyer in "Michaela's room" at the Hayward police station, named for all the files concerning Michaela's abduction.

Police Sgt. Eric Krimm shows a framed flyer in "Michaela's room" at the Hayward police station, named for all the files concerning Michaela's abduction.

Photo: Liz Hafalia, The Chronicle

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In this undated file photo provided by the California Department of Corrections, Wesley Shermantine is shown. Authorities say Shermantine and Loren Herzog, dubbed the "Speed Freak Killers," wantonly murdered many throughout California's rural Central Valley before their arrest in 1999. Now, motivated by a bounty hunter's promise to pay, one of those convicted killer's is breaking his long-held secret and leading investigators to burial sites that have yielded hundreds of human bones less

In this undated file photo provided by the California Department of Corrections shows Loren Joseph Herzog. Authorities say Herzog and Wesley Shermantine, dubbed the "Speed Freak Killers," wantonly murdered many throughout California's rural Central Valley before their arrest in 1999. Now, motivated by a bounty hunter's promise to pay, one of those convicted killer's is breaking his long-held secret and leading investigators to burial sites that have yielded hundreds of human bones. less

In this Friday, Feb. 17, 2012 photo, a bulldozer and a front loader move soil back into a pit after where bones and debris were excavated over the past week from an old well on Flood Road east of Linden, Calif. The site is suspected to be a dumping ground for the victims of two California serial killers Wes Shermantine and Loren Herzog, the "Speed Freak Killers" who are suspected of murdering as many as 20 people in the 1980s and 1990s.

In this Friday, Feb. 17, 2012 photo, a bulldozer and a front loader move soil back into a pit after where bones and debris were excavated over the past week from an old well on Flood Road east of Linden, Calif.

In a Sunday, Feb. 12, 2012 file photo, San Joaquin Sheriff deputies and Department of Justice personnel catalog human remains recovered from a well on an abandoned cattle ranch near Linden, Calif. Authorities

The discovery of a child's 3-inch bone fragment in an old San Joaquin County well has raised hopes that the enduring mystery of what happened to 9-year-old Michaela Garecht of Hayward, missing for nearly 24 years, may finally be solved.

But it probably will be weeks before there are any firm answers, authorities said Thursday.

Michaela's parents told The Chronicle that police informed them this week that the small fragment was discovered with the remains of Joann Hobson, who disappeared in 1985 at age 16.

The human bones were pulled up from the well this year during a police excavation in which at least three possible victims of the Speed Freak Killers were found. Only Hobson's remains have been positively identified so far.

The well had been filled in and sealed by the property owner in the 1980s. Investigators dug down about 50 feet in their search for body parts.

The child's bone fragment underwent DNA testing at an Arizona lab, and the results were inconclusive, police said. The piece is now undergoing additional, more detailed DNA testing at a Virginia lab to see if it is from Michaela, who was last seen outside a Hayward store in November 1988.

"I don't think we can jump down the road of 'this must be,' " said Hayward police Sgt. Eric Krimm. "I think it's very unsure right now. Hopefully, the DNA analysis will give us some closure on whether it is or isn't. That's the biggest goal."

Meanwhile, Michaela's parents have different degrees of hope - her mother is encouraged, while her father is skeptical. They've had flickers of hope raised before, only to have them dashed.

Michaela's mother, Sharon Murch, said Thursday that she hopes the case may finally be solved - even if it means that her daughter is no longer alive.

"Probably a lot of you may remember me saying, 'Oh, I don't think it has anything to do with Michaela,' " Murch said at a news conference Thursday morning, referring to the excavations. "It just wasn't a part of the scenario I had in mind. I tended to kind of dismiss it. I pretty much ignored that investigation all along."

Now, however, she said she is encouraged.

Michaela's father, Rod Garecht, said investigators told him preliminary tests of the fragment showed its DNA may bear a potential resemblance to his ex-wife's DNA but conclusively did not match his, suggesting it is not a bone from his daughter.

And the fact that the fragment is of a child, he said, raises more questions because the two Speed Freak Killers have not been matched to the deaths of any children - though some sources close to the investigation believe they may have killed youngsters.

Father will wait, see

"I'm pretty skeptical," he said. "I'm not going to jump up and down and say that it's her. I'm going to wait until we get something definitive.

"This has happened several times before, and it never turned into anything," he added.

It will be several weeks at least before DNA analysis of the bone fragment reveals whether it is from Michaela, police said.

The police sketch done decades ago of Michaela's kidnapper resembles some pictures of Loren Herzog, one of the Speed Freak Killers, who had family in nearby Castro Valley. While free on parole, Herzog committed suicide Jan. 16, the same day he learned his murder-spree partner, Wesley Shermantine, was sharing details of their crimes from his Death Row cell at San Quentin Prison.

Murch said that when she is eventually told about the DNA test results, either way, "it's probably impossible to have a really happy ending. If this is Michaela, then it breaks my heart that she's laying in this place for all this time. I just want to find her and bring her home, whether she's alive or whether she's not."

If the fragment is from Michaela, her remains won't be scattered at sea like those of other relatives, Murch said. "If Michaela has been alone in that place for all this time, we should bring her home and keep her at home with the family," she said.

Hayward police were notified by a forensic anthropologist several weeks ago about the child's bone fragment, and investigators notified Murch on Monday, authorities said.

In 2009, after Jaycee Dugard was rescued from a backyard compound near Antioch and captors Phillip and Nancy Garrido were arrested, Hayward police also investigated any possible connection to Michaela. "When that didn't happen, I went into a very deep depression," Murch said.

Shermantine and Herzog were dubbed the Speed Freak Killers and were convicted of murdering four people during a 15-year, methamphetamine-fueled crime spree. Investigators have said they believe they may have killed as many as 19 people, and a former cellmate of Herzog's told The Chronicle the killer bragged of killing 112 people.

Based on information from Shermantine, bones have been dug up in Calaveras County and near Linden, the killers' hometown in San Joaquin County.

Independent lab test

Murch said she was grateful to Hobson's mother, Joan Shelley, for deciding to send her daughter's remains to an independent lab in Chico for testing after they were turned over to her. That testing is what revealed that the 3-inch fragment did not match Joann.

Critics have blamed the commingling of remains, such as those of Joann and the child's fragment, on the use of backhoes to excavate the well near Linden, and Murch echoed the criticism Thursday. Sheriff's officials said they needed the backhoes because the dig area was so large.

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